CHAPTER XVII A VOICE FROM THE PAST

The next day brought me a strange letter from William Jordan, the defrauded farmer whom I had left in Eden Valley. He wrote:

"Dear Mr. Hilton:--I don't know as I ought to say anything, because maybe it ain't you after all, and if it be you, I suppose you don't want me to know or you would have guve your name, but at the same time I don't see who else it could be, and I ain't used to taking presents without saying thank you. This is what I mean. I got a letter from the First National Bank at Saintsbury the other day and there was a cashier's check for $1000 in it, for me, and nothing to explain why they sent it. I wrote to find out if it was a mistake and they say no they sent it per instructions but can't give no names. I suppose it is meant to make up for the thousand that Diavolo got, but nobody knows about him but you. Anyhow I am very thankful, and if you don't want the thanks yourself you can pass them on to the right party if you know who he is.

"Your respectively,

"William Jordan."

I wrote promptly to Mr. Jordan telling him that I was not his unknown benefactor and that I was almost as interested as he could be in learning who the donor was. It was clearly significant. Whoever had sent it knew! Whether the restitution was prompted by remorse or by benevolence, it indicated knowledge of the loss. I laid the situation before Fellows, who already knew about Jordan.

"Do you think you can possibly discover who bought that check?"

He looked dubious. "Bank business is always confidential."

"Well, it's up to you, because I am going away for a trip. But I'll give you a starter. Howard Ellison's account may possibly show a similar debit."

"Mr. Ellison has been buying some new microscopes and other apparatus," Fellows said casually.

"How in the world do you know that?" I asked. Fellows was the most surprising fellow.

He flushed and looked embarrassed. I did not press the point, because I knew if he didn't want to answer he wouldn't.

"Ellison certainly had some connection with Barker," I said, watching him. "There was a check of Ellison's in Barker's pocket when he was killed."

Fellows looked up with interest. "Then that would belong to his widow. If he has one," he added, as an afterthought.

"Undoubtedly it would."

"May I ask if you know the amount?"

"Two hundred and fifty."

He looked disappointed.

"You think that isn't enough to induce her to come forward?"

"Oh, I suppose it might be worth claiming," he said slowly. "But I think his widow's chief gain is in her freedom from a rascal."

"You can't help sympathizing with the man who shot him, can you?" I said.

His cheek twitched. Perhaps it was a checked smile.

"I sympathize with him and I think he did a service to the community," he said in a low voice.

"You are probably quite right," I mused. "And yet the law would not see it in that light."

"Oh, the law!" he said, with the contempt that the blind goddess never failed to arouse.

Jean had been right in guessing that I meant to go away, but she was wrong in thinking that it was on Clyde's account. Probably I should have taken her more into my confidence, but it is always my impulse, both personally and professionally, to work out my theories by myself, without discussing them. The truth of the matter was that I was still on the trail of Diavolo.

I had found, in my accumulated mail, a report of his appearance in a small Missouri town at a date somewhat later than the shows on the route I had already traced. It struck me that there might be significance both in the date and the distance. The Jordan coup had probably frightened them a little. They had jumped to this far-away point for one engagement, and then had retired to private life, Barker coming to Saintsbury. On the bare chance of discovering some particulars that might have significance, I set out for this town. I believe that I was upheld secretly by a feeling that somewhere, somehow, sometime, the truth would be revealed, if I only followed the trail long enough.

At first I was met with the same baffling haze of obscurity. The local manager had taken Diavolo on as an emergency to fill a blank caused by the illness of a scheduled performer for that week. He doubted that he had appeared anywhere else in the State. He had never heard of him before, but was persuaded by Barker's fluency to give him a show, especially as his price was cheap.

"That manager of his, Barker, said that Diavolo was a great man who had given shows long ago but was getting too high up in the world now to have his name connected with the business. Said he was really out of the business, but was making a little tour incog. to get some ready money, and as he had the newspaper reports to show from other places, I took him on."

"Did he make good?"

"You bet. He's the goods, all right. Say, it's a funny stunt, isn't it? I'm used to fake mysteries, of course,--I see enough of that sort. But when you run up against the real thing, like what Diavolo put up, it makes you feel the devil is in it, for a fact. Don't it, now?"

"It does. And I want to catch him. Do you know anything that would help me to identify him? If you wanted him again, how would you go to work to find him?"

"Look up Barker."

"But Barker is dead, and his knowledge has died with him."

The manager shook his head. "You've got your work cut out for you, then. Barker was the only one to come into the open. Diavolo always stood back and let Barker do the talking. Might have thought Diavolo was deaf and dumb for all you heard of him until he stepped out on the stage. Then he talked all right,--stage patter, of course, but clever."

"You think then that this was not his first appearance on the stage?"

"Hard to say. Barker said he was an old un, but that he had given it up to go into something else,--something respectable. I didn't believe it at the time, on general principles, but maybe he was giving it to me straight."

I then followed the trail to the hotel where Diavolo had stopped, and here I encountered a girl who had her wits about her and knew how to use her eyes. She was the daughter of the landlady, and she acted as clerk, waitress, or chambermaid, as occasion required. She looked up with more than professional interest when I mentioned Diavolo's name.

"You mean that dude that was here in the summer and read people's thoughts at the Orpheum? Say, wasn't he great! Know him?"

"Not so well as I hope to. What did he look like?"

"Oh, he had black hair and a beard, and eyes that kind of looked through you. Say, it's hard to describe a man, you all look so much alike,--oh, dress so much alike, you know. But Diavolo was different, though I don't just know how to explain it. He was a sure-enough swell off the stage, wasn't he?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Why, I heard that man that was with him,--Barker, his name was,--I heard him say--You see, I was in the hall, and the transom of that room won't shut, so you just can't help hearing,--and Barker had a high voice anyway, and he said, 'You're a fool to give it up.' I didn't know what he was giving up, of course, but Barker went on, 'You can make money at this business hand over fist if you let me manage things, and you aren't making any money being respectable. What's respectability compared to the coin?' I often thought of that afterwards. There's something in it. And still, respectability is worth something," she added thoughtfully.

"Was that all you heard? What did Diavolo say to that?"

"Oh, I couldn't hear anything he said, because he spoke so low, but Barker said, kind of laughing, 'Just remember that I've got you on the hip, my boy. If I mention in the right place that you and the hypnotist Diavolo are one and the same, where will you be then?' And Diavolo must 'a' said something angry, for I heard Mr. Barker say, kind of sarcastic, 'No, you won't kill me, nor you won't do any other fool thing. You'll join in with me for good and all and we'll gather in the shekels.' And then I heard something that sounded uncommon like a chair swung over a man's head,--I've seen them do that in the bar room when they got excited,--and Mr. Barker popped out of the room in a hurry. He was pretending to laugh but I could see that he was some scared inside. And I don't blame him. When Diavolo looked at you, you didn't want to say that your soul was your own unless he gave you leave."

"Did he ever look at you?" I asked curiously.

She tossed her saucy head. "That's different! No, he didn't try any of his hypnotizing tricks on me."

"Did you see any signs of bad feeling between them afterwards? Was there any more quarrelling?"

"Not that I heard. I guess the little man knew better."

"Which one do you mean by the little man?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, Mr. Barker, of course. Not that he was much smaller than Mr. Diavolo if you weighed them, perhaps, but you know what I mean. Mr. Barker made me think of the man showing off the tiger at the circus. You could see that for all his show of not being afraid, he didn't dare turn his back for a minute."

That remark seemed to me to express the situation very vividly, and I had no doubt that her native shrewdness had correctly grasped the relation between the two men. And her positive testimony that Diavolo had threatened to kill Barker if the latter divulged his identity was certainly significant. Was it not most probable that that was what had happened later? How Eugene Benbow had become involved in the fatal affair I could not even guess.

After my interviews with the manager and the landlady's daughter, I seemed to have sucked Oakdale dry so far as information concerning Diavolo went. But instead of returning at once to Saintsbury, I determined to run on to Houston. I wanted to go over the records of Clyde's trial there, with a view to seeing whether there was any flaw or technicality of which it might be possible to take advantage. Clyde was probably fleeing the country as fast as he could make his way by the Underground, but there was always the possibility that his affairs might be brought to a sudden climax.

I thought that the critical moment had arrived with unceremonious haste when, after registering in a Houston hotel, I looked up and saw Clyde himself crossing the lobby to take the elevator. For a moment I hesitated whether to accost him or not, but he saw me and at once turned back and came over.

"Hello! You here?" he said easily. "Come on up to my room, if you aren't busy."

"All right," I responded, making an effort to match his casual manner.

When we reached his room, I saw that despite his self-possession he looked harassed and worn. The long inner strain had suddenly come to the surface.

"You didn't come for me?" he asked nervously as we shook hands.

"Certainly not. I had no idea that you would be so rash, to use no stronger word, as to come here."

He threw out his hands with a helpless gesture.

"I couldn't help it. It seemed all along as though I must be able to find some evidence in my favor if I came myself. I didn't dare to come before, for fear of a chance recognition, but now that the danger had appeared, I was driven to taking chances."

"How long have you been here?"

"Twenty-four hours."

"You are lucky to have remained undetected so long. Now I hope you'll stay in your room till night and then get away as quickly and quietly as possible."

"There's nothing else to do," he said heavily. "I have been to Lester. The places are all changed and the people are new. Everything has passed away--except the official record of the trial and the sentence."

"Of course it would all be changed," I said, as lightly as possible. "But I am going to examine the account of the trial and see if there was anything in the procedure which will give us a loophole. But you mustn't stay here to complicate matters. You must get away,--as I have told you before."

He did not answer for a moment, but sat with bent head. Then he spoke slowly.

"I wonder if life would be worth having on the terms you suggest. Expatriation, separation from everything that you care for, everyone who makes your public, from all your associations and ambitions,--"

"You could establish new associations. You would see life from a different angle, and that is no small advantage. And--pardon me--you would not need to go alone."

He looked up swiftly at that. "Never! Do you think that I would let--anyone make so mad a choice?--dower her with such a life as I must live henceforward, dodging in the shadows, afraid of hearing my own name, an outlaw and a skulker? If I regard life for myself as of dubious value under such conditions, do you think I am so hopelessly mean as to ask anyone to share it with me?"

Of course I could understand his point of view, though he looked so handsome as he repudiated the idea that I guessed Miss Thurston would not have regarded the lot as wholly forlorn.

"No," he said, walking restlessly up and down the narrow room, "I'll take my medicine, but I won't involve anyone else. I'll make as good a fight as I can, and I won't skulk,--"

He was interrupted. There was a tap at the door, and immediately it was opened and a police officer stepped inside. He glanced from me to Clyde and picked his man unerringly.

"Mr. Clyde, I presume?"

Clyde nodded. "Yes. You want me?"

"Yes, sir,"--deprecatingly.

"You mean I am to go with you now?"

"Yes, sir,"--firmly.

Clyde smiled at me wryly. "I suppose I ought to know something of the etiquette of these affairs, but I am afraid I am not up. How about my personal papers? Will I be allowed to turn them over to you?"

"Certainly, unless the officer has a warrant for them," I said, with an assured air, intended to impress the officer.

Clyde took from an inner pocket a packet of letters, old and worn. "These are the letters that took me back from Lester," he said with a smile. "They were in the bag which I had left in my room at Houston. That was the only reason I went back that morning. If--well, if the time should come when you think best, give them to K. T., and tell her that I have carried them always. She will understand then,--"

"I will not fail," I said, much moved. So it had been Katherine Thurston all the time! "And that reminds me that I have here a letter which Miss Benbow charged me to give you,--an old letter written by her father. She thought you might care to keep it. Perhaps, under the circumstances, you'd better read it and then return it to me for safe keeping."

"I remember Senator Benbow very well,--a fine man!" Clyde said. He spoke absently, and I guessed that his mind was on other matters, but I had no intention of letting him disregard Jean's remembrance, or of letting the letter which she had treasured go into the hands of any careless court official.

"It concerns you, she said. Read it, and then I will take charge of it."

I handed him the old letter in its faded envelope, and turned to speak to the officer while Clyde should read it. The detective had watched us closely, but so long as Clyde made no move to leave the room--or to draw a revolver--he showed no disposition to interfere with our arrangements.

"How did you get information about him?" I asked the officer, merely to leave Clyde to himself for a moment.

"From Saintsbury. The police there are looking for him, and they wired us to be on the lookout."

"Then you agree with Jerome's theory that the villain always returns to the scene of his crime in the last act?" I said.

"Jerome? Does he say that?" The man looked puzzled. "Well, maybe he has found it so in New York. But I don't quite know what you mean by the last act."

A faint sound from Clyde made me turn. He was standing, supporting himself against the table, with a face so marked by emotion that I was startled into a cry. Whether his emotion was terror or joy or merely awe, I could not tell from his look, his face was so curiously changed. He held out to me the letter which he had been reading, and when I took it he dropped into the chair by the table and let his head fall upon his arm. I felt that it was the unconscious attitude of prayer, and I unfolded the letter with more anxiety than I can express. This is what I read:

"ON THE TRAIN, NEAR LESTER, TEXAS,

"August 30th, 1895."

"My Dear Love:--Midnight has just blown across the sky, and here is the thirtieth,--the day for which I always stay awake so that I may send you a birthday greeting on the very first minute of time that has a right to carry it. I am throwing a kiss in your direction now, and if you are not conscious of it this minute, you will know when you receive this missive that although your devoted husband was traveling (and dead tired) he waited awake for the express purpose of saying 'Happy Birthday' to you into space.

"I left Houston an hour ago on my way to St. Louis, and we have just passed Lester, a little way station and our first stop. Whom do you think I saw there, of all persons in the world? Kenneth Clyde! I didn't know that he was in this part of the country, and I can't imagine what he could want of Lester, which, to judge from what I saw of it, consists of a platform, a freight shed, and three houses. He evidently had come up from Houston on my train, though I didn't know it until I saw him jump off at Lester and rush for the station agent, who was lounging by the shed. Whatever he wanted he didn't get it, for he was rowing the agent so hard that he didn't see or hear me, though I hallooed to him. I suspect that he found he had got on the wrong train by mistake and wanted to get back. If so, he will have to wait until morning, when the local comes along,--long enough to cool his fit of temper. I like Kenneth and believe he has the makings of a man in him, for all that he is somewhat unbroken. If I ever have a chance to hold out a helping hand to the boy, I'll certainly do it.

"I'll be home in a fortnight, and I count the days until I shall see you, my own. Kiss the two ingenious Gene-iuses for their dad.    JOE."

I caught Clyde's hand and wrung it. "It's a miracle! That is, it is the new evidence which will give us a chance to re-open the case. And it is conclusive. Man, there could never have been anything more complete. And to come now, at this moment!"

"It is the helping hand that he offered," Clyde said, with an unsteady laugh. "And little Jean sent it to me, you say?"

"Yes. She had been looking over some old mementoes of her father, and she merely thought this letter might interest you because you were mentioned in it."

The officer apparently thought we were taking too much time mooning over old family letters. "If you are ready, Mr. Clyde,--" he suggested courteously.

"Yes, all right. I'm ready. You will take the necessary steps, Hilton?"

"Of course. I can't at this moment think of anything that would give me more pleasure. I'll go down with you at once."

But I didn't. As we stepped into the hall, a boy with a telegram came toward me. It was a forwarded message from Oakdale, where they had failed to find me:

"Come back to onct. There is a trouble on the girl.      BARNEY."

"He means Jean," I exclaimed, handing the slip to Clyde. "I know he means Jean. Confound him for not being more explicit. What can have happened?"

"You'll go at once, of course?" said Clyde promptly.

"I can't go till a train starts." And then I remembered how my going would affect Clyde. "I'll have time to lay this letter of yours before the court before I go, in any event. And I shouldn't want to take any chances of a train wreck with that document in my pocket."

But you can imagine the fever I was in till I could get off. I saw the proper officials and took the necessary steps to secure judicial recognition of the important paper which was to restore Clyde's life, liberty, and happiness, and though he could not, of course, be released at a moment's notice, I had the satisfaction of seeing the procedure started that would enable him in a short time to face the world a free man, with the secret terror that had shadowed his life for fifteen years forever laid. But I went through it all like a man in a dream. Through all that was said and done I was hearing every moment, like a persistent cry,--

"Come back at once! Jeans needs you,--Jean needs you!"

After leaving the court house I still had hours--ages!--to wait at the station, and the pictures my imagination conjured up were not soothing company. I had telegraphed Barney that I was coming, but after that I could do nothing but fret myself to a fever waiting. I got off, finally, but all through the night and all the next day the singing wheels of the train were beating out the refrain,--

"She needs me! She needs me!"